Who will protect Jamaican people?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

A WORD to the wise: ‘A goat must have knowledge of the size of his bowels before he swallows an ackee seed’.

The death toll in the COVID19 pandemic would pale in the face of a possible second wave. While we did worse than all the other English-speaking Caribbean countries in terms of controlling the spread of the virus, we fared better than many larger countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and others.

With that said, we are now risking what little progress we have made by opening the borders without stringent testing protocols for tourists entering the country. Doing temperature checks and asking the obvious at airports are woefully insufficient protection against a second wave. The tourists would be travelling from overseas, that we already know. We would also know exactly where they boarded the flights to Jamaica. With the majority of persons who tested positive for the virus asymptomatic, it is likely that many of those who will come could fall into this category. With no symptoms, neither temperature checks nor observation with the naked eye can determine who is a carrier of the virus.

Didn’t Patient 1 from Bull Bay, and many others, pass the temperature check tests at the airport before subsequently testing positive for coronavirus? What about the ‘health passport’ for visitors that the prime minister spoke about?

Even if others pushed back against this proposal, Jamaicans expect their government to push back for all of us. Who is Andrew Holness serving, the people of Jamaica or his tourism bosses?

The virus has proven that all we think we know about it is a farce. We need protection from the second wave that is coming, and we clearly need protection from those who are pushing and pulling Andrew Holness and his government.